Georgics
Virgil
Vergil. The Poems of Vergil. Rhoades, James, translator. London: Oxford University Press, 1921.
- Thee too, great Pales, will I hymn, and thee,
- Amphrysian shepherd, worthy to be sung,
- You, woods and waves Lycaean. All themes beside,
- Which else had charmed the vacant mind with song,
- Are now waxed common. Of harsh Eurystheus who
- The story knows not, or that praiseless king
- Busiris, and his altars? or by whom
- Hath not the tale been told of Hylas young,
- Latonian Delos and Hippodame,
- And Pelops for his ivory shoulder famed,
- Keen charioteer? Needs must a path be tried,
- By which I too may lift me from the dust,
- And float triumphant through the mouths of men.
- Yea, I shall be the first, so life endure,
- To lead the Muses with me, as I pass
- To mine own country from the Aonian height;
- I, Mantua, first will bring thee back the palms
- Of Idumaea, and raise a marble shrine
- On thy green plain fast by the water-side,
- Where Mincius winds more vast in lazy coils,
- And rims his margent with the tender reed.
- Amid my shrine shall Caesar's godhead dwell.
- To him will I, as victor, bravely dight
- In Tyrian purple, drive along the bank
- A hundred four-horse cars. All Greece for me,
- Leaving Alpheus and Molorchus' grove,
- On foot shall strive, or with the raw-hide glove;
- Whilst I, my head with stripped green olive crowned,
- Will offer gifts. Even 'tis present joy
- To lead the high processions to the fane,
- And view the victims felled; or how the scene
- Sunders with shifted face, and Britain's sons
- Inwoven thereon with those proud curtains rise.
- Of gold and massive ivory on the doors
- I'll trace the battle of the Gangarides,
- And our Quirinus' conquering arms, and there
- Surging with war, and hugely flowing, the Nile,
- And columns heaped on high with naval brass.
- And Asia's vanquished cities I will add,
- And quelled Niphates, and the Parthian foe,
- Who trusts in flight and backward-volleying darts,
- And trophies torn with twice triumphant hand
- From empires twain on ocean's either shore.
- And breathing forms of Parian marble there
- Shall stand, the offspring of Assaracus,
- And great names of the Jove-descended folk,
- And father Tros, and Troy's first founder, lord
- Of Cynthus. And accursed Envy there
- Shall dread the Furies, and thy ruthless flood,
- Cocytus, and Ixion's twisted snakes,
- And that vast wheel and ever-baffling stone.
- Meanwhile the Dryad-haunted woods and lawns
- Unsullied seek we; 'tis thy hard behest,
- Maecenas. Without thee no lofty task
- My mind essays. Up! break the sluggish bonds
- Of tarriance; with loud din Cithaeron calls,
- Steed-taming Epidaurus, and thy hounds,
- Taygete; and hark! the assenting groves
- With peal on peal reverberate the roar.
- Yet must I gird me to rehearse ere long
- The fiery fights of Caesar, speed his name
- Through ages, countless as to Caesar's self
- From the first birth-dawn of Tithonus old.
- If eager for the prized Olympian palm
- One breed the horse, or bullock strong to plough,
- Be his prime care a shapely dam to choose.
- Of kine grim-faced is goodliest, with coarse head
- And burly neck, whose hanging dewlaps reach
- From chin to knee; of boundless length her flank;
- Large every way she is, large-footed even,
- With incurved horns and shaggy ears beneath.
- Nor let mislike me one with spots of white
- Conspicuous, or that spurns the yoke, whose horn
- At times hath vice in't: liker bull-faced she,
- And tall-limbed wholly, and with tip of tail
- Brushing her footsteps as she walks along.
- The age for Hymen's rites, Lucina's pangs,
- Ere ten years ended, after four begins;
- Their residue of days nor apt to teem,
- Nor strong for ploughing. Meantime, while youth's delight
- Survives within them, loose the males: be first
- To speed thy herds of cattle to their loves,
- Breed stock with stock, and keep the race supplied.
- Ah! life's best hours are ever first to fly
- From hapless mortals; in their place succeed
- Disease and dolorous eld; till travail sore
- And death unpitying sweep them from the scene.
- Still will be some, whose form thou fain wouldst change;
- Renew them still; with yearly choice of young
- Preventing losses, lest too late thou rue.
- Nor steeds crave less selection; but on those
- Thou think'st to rear, the promise of their line,
- From earliest youth thy chiefest pains bestow.
- See from the first yon high-bred colt afield,
- His lofty step, his limbs' elastic tread:
- Dauntless he leads the herd, still first to try
- The threatening flood, or brave the unknown bridge,
- By no vain noise affrighted; lofty-necked,
- With clean-cut head, short belly, and stout back;
- His sprightly breast exuberant with brawn.
- Chestnut and grey are good; the worst-hued white
- And sorrel. Then lo! if arms are clashed afar,
- Bide still he cannot: ears stiffen and limbs quake;
- His nostrils snort and roll out wreaths of fire.
- Dense is his mane, that when uplifted falls
- On his right shoulder; betwixt either loin
- The spine runs double; his earth-dinting hoof
- Rings with the ponderous beat of solid horn.
- Even such a horse was Cyllarus, reined and tamed
- By Pollux of Amyclae; such the pair
- In Grecian song renowned, those steeds of Mars,
- And famed Achilles' team: in such-like form
- Great Saturn's self with mane flung loose on neck
- Sped at his wife's approach, and flying filled
- The heights of Pelion with his piercing neigh.
- Even him, when sore disease or sluggish eld
- Now saps his strength, pen fast at home, and spare
- His not inglorious age. A horse grown old
- Slow kindling unto love in vain prolongs
- The fruitless task, and, to the encounter come,
- As fire in stubble blusters without strength,
- He rages idly. Therefore mark thou first
- Their age and mettle, other points anon,
- As breed and lineage, or what pain was theirs
- To lose the race, what pride the palm to win.
- Seest how the chariots in mad rivalry
- Poured from the barrier grip the course and go,
- When youthful hope is highest, and every heart
- Drained with each wild pulsation? How they ply
- The circling lash, and reaching forward let
- The reins hang free! Swift spins the glowing wheel;
- And now they stoop, and now erect in air
- Seem borne through space and towering to the sky:
- No stop, no stay; the dun sand whirls aloft;
- They reek with foam-flakes and pursuing breath;
- So sweet is fame, so prized the victor's palm.
- 'Twas Ericthonius first took heart to yoke
- Four horses to his car, and rode above
- The whirling wheels to victory: but the ring
- And bridle-reins, mounted on horses' backs,
- The Pelethronian Lapithae bequeathed,
- And taught the knight in arms to spurn the ground,
- And arch the upgathered footsteps of his pride.
- Each task alike is arduous, and for each
- A horse young, fiery, swift of foot, they seek;
- How oft so-e'er yon rival may have chased
- The flying foe, or boast his native plain
- Epirus, or Mycenae's stubborn hold,
- And trace his lineage back to Neptune's birth.
- These points regarded, as the time draws nigh,
- With instant zeal they lavish all their care
- To plump with solid fat the chosen chief
- And designated husband of the herd:
- And flowery herbs they cut, and serve him well
- With corn and running water, that his strength
- Not fail him for that labour of delight,
- Nor puny colts betray the feeble sire.
- The herd itself of purpose they reduce
- To leanness, and when love's sweet longing first
- Provokes them, they forbid the leafy food,
- And pen them from the springs, and oft beside
- With running shake, and tire them in the sun,
- What time the threshing-floor groans heavily
- With pounding of the corn-ears, and light chaff
- Is whirled on high to catch the rising west.
- This do they that the soil's prolific powers
- May not be dulled by surfeiting, nor choke
- The sluggish furrows, but eagerly absorb
- Their fill of love, and deeply entertain.
- To care of sire the mother's care succeeds.
- When great with young they wander nigh their time,
- Let no man suffer them to drag the yoke
- In heavy wains, nor leap across the way,
- Nor scour the meads, nor swim the rushing flood.
- In lonely lawns they feed them, by the course
- Of brimming streams, where moss is, and the banks
- With grass are greenest, where are sheltering caves,
- And far outstretched the rock-flung shadow lies.
- Round wooded Silarus and the ilex-bowers
- Of green Alburnus swarms a winged pest—
- Its Roman name Asilus, by the Greeks
- Termed Oestros—fierce it is, and harshly hums,
- Driving whole herds in terror through the groves,
- Till heaven is madded by their bellowing din,
- And Tanager's dry bed and forest-banks.
- With this same scourge did Juno wreak of old
- The terrors of her wrath, a plague devised
- Against the heifer sprung from Inachus.
- From this too thou, since in the noontide heats
- 'Tis most persistent, fend thy teeming herds,
- And feed them when the sun is newly risen,
- Or the first stars are ushering in the night.
- But, yeaning ended, all their tender care
- Is to the calves transferred; at once with marks
- They brand them, both to designate their race,
- And which to rear for breeding, or devote
- As altar-victims, or to cleave the ground
- And into ridges tear and turn the sod.
- The rest along the greensward graze at will.
- Those that to rustic uses thou wouldst mould,
- As calves encourage and take steps to tame,
- While pliant wills and plastic youth allow.
- And first of slender withies round the throat
- Loose collars hang, then when their free-born necks
- Are used to service, with the self-same bands
- Yoke them in pairs, and steer by steer compel
- Keep pace together. And time it is that oft
- Unfreighted wheels be drawn along the ground
- Behind them, as to dint the surface-dust;
- Then let the beechen axle strain and creak
- 'Neath some stout burden, whilst a brazen pole
- Drags on the wheels made fast thereto. Meanwhile
- For their unbroken youth not grass alone,
- Nor meagre willow-leaves and marish-sedge,
- But corn-ears with thy hand pluck from the crops.
- Nor shall the brood-kine, as of yore, for thee
- Brim high the snowy milking-pail, but spend
- Their udders' fullness on their own sweet young.
- But if fierce squadrons and the ranks of war
- Delight thee rather, or on wheels to glide
- At Pisa, with Alpheus fleeting by,
- And in the grove of Jupiter urge on
- The flying chariot, be your steed's first task
- To face the warrior's armed rage, and brook
- The trumpet, and long roar of rumbling wheels,
- And clink of chiming bridles in the stall;
- Then more and more to love his master's voice
- Caressing, or loud hand that claps his neck.
- Ay, thus far let him learn to dare, when first
- Weaned from his mother, and his mouth at times
- Yield to the supple halter, even while yet
- Weak, tottering-limbed, and ignorant of life.
- But, three years ended, when the fourth arrives,
- Now let him tarry not to run the ring
- With rhythmic hoof-beat echoing, and now learn
- Alternately to curve each bending leg,
- And be like one that struggleth; then at last
- Challenge the winds to race him, and at speed
- Launched through the open, like a reinless thing,
- Scarce print his footsteps on the surface-sand.
- As when with power from Hyperborean climes
- The north wind stoops, and scatters from his path
- Dry clouds and storms of Scythia; the tall corn
- And rippling plains 'gin shiver with light gusts;
- A sound is heard among the forest-tops;
- Long waves come racing shoreward: fast he flies,
- With instant pinion sweeping earth and main.
- A steed like this or on the mighty course
- Of Elis at the goal will sweat, and shower
- Red foam-flakes from his mouth, or, kindlier task,
- With patient neck support the Belgian car.
- Then, broken at last, let swell their burly frame
- With fattening corn-mash, for, unbroke, they will
- With pride wax wanton, and, when caught, refuse
- Tough lash to brook or jagged curb obey.
- But no device so fortifies their power
- As love's blind stings of passion to forefend,
- Whether on steed or steer thy choice be set.
- Ay, therefore 'tis they banish bulls afar
- To solitary pastures, or behind
- Some mountain-barrier, or broad streams beyond,
- Or else in plenteous stalls pen fast at home.
- For, even through sight of her, the female wastes
- His strength with smouldering fire, till he forget
- Both grass and woodland. She indeed full oft
- With her sweet charms can lovers proud compel
- To battle for the conquest horn to horn.
- In Sila's forest feeds the heifer fair,
- While each on each the furious rivals run;
- Wound follows wound; the black blood laves their limbs;
- Horns push and strive against opposing horns,
- With mighty groaning; all the forest-side
- And far Olympus bellow back the roar.
- Nor wont the champions in one stall to couch;
- But he that's worsted hies him to strange climes
- Far off, an exile, moaning much the shame,
- The blows of that proud conqueror, then love's loss
- Avenged not; with one glance toward the byre,
- His ancient royalties behind him lie.
- So with all heed his strength he practiseth,
- And nightlong makes the hard bare stones his bed,
- And feeds on prickly leaf and pointed rush,
- And proves himself, and butting at a tree
- Learns to fling wrath into his horns, with blows
- Provokes the air, and scattering clouds of sand
- Makes prelude of the battle; afterward,
- With strength repaired and gathered might breaks camp,
- And hurls him headlong on the unthinking foe:
- As in mid ocean when a wave far of
- Begins to whiten, mustering from the main
- Its rounded breast, and, onward rolled to land
- Falls with prodigious roar among the rocks,
- Huge as a very mountain: but the depths
- Upseethe in swirling eddies, and disgorge
- The murky sand-lees from their sunken bed.
- Nay, every race on earth of men, and beasts,
- And ocean-folk, and flocks, and painted birds,
- Rush to the raging fire: love sways them all.
- Never than then more fiercely o'er the plain
- Prowls heedless of her whelps the lioness:
- Nor monstrous bears such wide-spread havoc-doom
- Deal through the forests; then the boar is fierce,
- Most deadly then the tigress: then, alack!
- Ill roaming is it on Libya's lonely plains.
- Mark you what shivering thrills the horse's frame,
- If but a waft the well-known gust conveys?
- Nor curb can check them then, nor lash severe,
- Nor rocks and caverned crags, nor barrier-floods,
- That rend and whirl and wash the hills away.
- Then speeds amain the great Sabellian boar,
- His tushes whets, with forefoot tears the ground,
- Rubs 'gainst a tree his flanks, and to and fro
- Hardens each wallowing shoulder to the wound.
- What of the youth, when love's relentless might
- Stirs the fierce fire within his veins? Behold!
- In blindest midnight how he swims the gulf
- Convulsed with bursting storm-clouds! Over him
- Heaven's huge gate thunders; the rock-shattered main
- Utters a warning cry; nor parents' tears
- Can backward call him, nor the maid he loves,
- Too soon to die on his untimely pyre.
- What of the spotted ounce to Bacchus dear,
- Or warlike wolf-kin or the breed of dogs?
- Why tell how timorous stags the battle join?
- O'er all conspicuous is the rage of mares,
- By Venus' self inspired of old, what time
- The Potnian four with rending jaws devoured
- The limbs of Glaucus. Love-constrained they roam
- Past Gargarus, past the loud Ascanian flood;
- They climb the mountains, and the torrents swim;
- And when their eager marrow first conceives
- The fire, in Spring-tide chiefly, for with Spring
- Warmth doth their frames revisit, then they stand
- All facing westward on the rocky heights,
- And of the gentle breezes take their fill;
- And oft unmated, marvellous to tell,
- But of the wind impregnate, far and wide
- O'er craggy height and lowly vale they scud,
- Not toward thy rising, Eurus, or the sun's,
- But westward and north-west, or whence up-springs
- Black Auster, that glooms heaven with rainy cold.
- Hence from their groin slow drips a poisonous juice,
- By shepherds truly named hippomanes,
- Hippomanes, fell stepdames oft have culled,
- And mixed with herbs and spells of baneful bode.
- Fast flies meanwhile the irreparable hour,
- As point to point our charmed round we trace.
- Enough of herds. This second task remains,
- The wool-clad flocks and shaggy goats to treat.
- Here lies a labour; hence for glory look,
- Brave husbandmen. Nor doubtfully know
- How hard it is for words to triumph here,
- And shed their lustre on a theme so slight:
- But I am caught by ravishing desire
- Above the lone Parnassian steep; I love
- To walk the heights, from whence no earlier track
- Slopes gently downward to Castalia's spring.
- Now, awful Pales, strike a louder tone.
- First, for the sheep soft pencotes I decree
- To browse in, till green summer's swift return;
- And that the hard earth under them with straw
- And handfuls of the fern be littered deep,
- Lest chill of ice such tender cattle harm
- With scab and loathly foot-rot. Passing thence
- I bid the goats with arbute-leaves be stored,
- And served with fresh spring-water, and their pens
- Turned southward from the blast, to face the suns
- Of winter, when Aquarius' icy beam
- Now sinks in showers upon the parting year.
- These too no lightlier our protection claim,
- Nor prove of poorer service, howsoe'er
- Milesian fleeces dipped in Tyrian reds
- Repay the barterer; these with offspring teem
- More numerous; these yield plenteous store of milk:
- The more each dry-wrung udder froths the pail,
- More copious soon the teat-pressed torrents flow.
- Ay, and on Cinyps' bank the he-goats too
- Their beards and grizzled chins and bristling hair
- Let clip for camp-use, or as rugs to wrap
- Seafaring wretches. But they browse the woods
- And summits of Lycaeus, and rough briers,
- And brakes that love the highland: of themselves
- Right heedfully the she-goats homeward troop
- Before their kids, and with plump udders clogged
- Scarce cross the threshold. Wherefore rather ye,
- The less they crave man's vigilance, be fain
- From ice to fend them and from snowy winds;
- Bring food and feast them with their branchy fare,
- Nor lock your hay-loft all the winter long.
- But when glad summer at the west wind's call
- Sends either flock to pasture in the glades,
- Soon as the day-star shineth, hie we then
- To the cool meadows, while the dawn is young,
- The grass yet hoary, and to browsing herds
- The dew tastes sweetest on the tender sward.
- When heaven's fourth hour draws on the thickening drought,
- And shrill cicalas pierce the brake with song,
- Then at the well-springs bid them, or deep pools,
- From troughs of holm-oak quaff the running wave:
- But at day's hottest seek a shadowy vale,
- Where some vast ancient-timbered oak of Jove
- Spreads his huge branches, or where huddling black
- Ilex on ilex cowers in awful shade.
- Then once more give them water sparingly,
- And feed once more, till sunset, when cool eve
- Allays the air, and dewy moonbeams slake
- The forest glades, with halcyon's song the shore,
- And every thicket with the goldfinch rings.
- Of Libya's shepherds why the tale pursue?
- Why sing their pastures and the scattered huts
- They house in? Oft their cattle day and night
- Graze the whole month together, and go forth
- Into far deserts where no shelter is,
- So flat the plain and boundless. All his goods
- The Afric swain bears with him, house and home,
- Arms, Cretan quiver, and Amyclaean dog;
- As some keen Roman in his country's arms
- Plies the swift march beneath a cruel load;
- Soon with tents pitched and at his post he stands,
- Ere looked for by the foe.
- Not thus the tribes
- Of Scythia by the far Maeotic wave,
- Where turbid Ister whirls his yellow sands,
- And Rhodope stretched out beneath the pole
- Comes trending backward. There the herds they keep
- Close-pent in byres, nor any grass is seen
- Upon the plain, nor leaves upon the tree:
- But with snow-ridges and deep frost afar
- Heaped seven ells high the earth lies featureless:
- Still winter? still the north wind's icy breath!
- Nay, never sun disparts the shadows pale,
- Or as he rides the steep of heaven, or dips
- In ocean's fiery bath his plunging car.
- Quick ice-crusts curdle on the running stream,
- And iron-hooped wheels the water's back now bears,
- To broad wains opened, as erewhile to ships;
- Brass vessels oft asunder burst, and clothes
- Stiffen upon the wearers; juicy wines
- They cleave with axes; to one frozen mass
- Whole pools are turned; and on their untrimmed beards
- Stiff clings the jagged icicle. Meanwhile
- All heaven no less is filled with falling snow;
- The cattle perish: oxen's mighty frames
- Stand island-like amid the frost, and stags
- In huddling herds, by that strange weight benumbed,
- Scarce top the surface with their antler-points.
- These with no hounds they hunt, nor net with toils,
- Nor scare with terror of the crimson plume;
- But, as in vain they breast the opposing block,
- Butcher them, knife in hand, and so dispatch
- Loud-bellowing, and with glad shouts hale them home.
- Themselves in deep-dug caverns underground
- Dwell free and careless; to their hearths they heave
- Oak-logs and elm-trees whole, and fire them there,
- There play the night out, and in festive glee
- With barm and service sour the wine-cup mock.
- So 'neath the seven-starred Hyperborean wain
- The folk live tameless, buffeted with blasts
- Of Eurus from Rhipaean hills, and wrap
- Their bodies in the tawny fells of beasts.
- If wool delight thee, first, be far removed
- All prickly boskage, burrs and caltrops; shun
- Luxuriant pastures; at the outset choose
- White flocks with downy fleeces. For the ram,
- How white soe'er himself, be but the tongue
- 'Neath his moist palate black, reject him, lest
- He sully with dark spots his offspring's fleece,
- And seek some other o'er the teeming plain.
- Even with such snowy bribe of wool, if ear
- May trust the tale, Pan, God of Arcady,
- Snared and beguiled thee, Luna, calling thee
- To the deep woods; nor thou didst spurn his call.
- But who for milk hath longing, must himself
- Carry lucerne and lotus-leaves enow
- With salt herbs to the cote, whence more they love
- The streams, more stretch their udders, and give back
- A subtle taste of saltness in the milk.
- Many there be who from their mothers keep
- The new-born kids, and straightway bind their mouths
- With iron-tipped muzzles. What they milk at dawn,
- Or in the daylight hours, at night they press;
- What darkling or at sunset, this ere morn
- They bear away in baskets—for to town
- The shepherd hies him—or with dash of salt
- Just sprinkle, and lay by for winter use.
- Nor be thy dogs last cared for; but alike
- Swift Spartan hounds and fierce Molossian feed
- On fattening whey. Never, with these to watch,
- Dread nightly thief afold and ravening wolves,
- Or Spanish desperadoes in the rear.
- And oft the shy wild asses thou wilt chase,
- With hounds, too, hunt the hare, with hounds the doe;
- Oft from his woodland wallowing-den uprouse
- The boar, and scare him with their baying, and drive,
- And o'er the mountains urge into the toils
- Some antlered monster to their chiming cry.
- Learn also scented cedar-wood to burn
- Within the stalls, and snakes of noxious smell
- With fumes of galbanum to drive away.
- Oft under long-neglected cribs, or lurks
- A viper ill to handle, that hath fled
- The light in terror, or some snake, that wont
- 'Neath shade and sheltering roof to creep, and shower
- Its bane among the cattle, hugs the ground,
- Fell scourge of kine. Shepherd, seize stakes, seize stones!
- And as he rears defiance, and puffs out
- A hissing throat, down with him! see how low
- That cowering crest is vailed in flight, the while,
- His midmost coils and final sweep of tail
- Relaxing, the last fold drags lingering spires.
- Then that vile worm that in Calabrian glades
- Uprears his breast, and wreathes a scaly back,
- His length of belly pied with mighty spots—
- While from their founts gush any streams, while yet
- With showers of Spring and rainy south-winds earth
- Is moistened, lo! he haunts the pools, and here
- Housed in the banks, with fish and chattering frogs
- Crams the black void of his insatiate maw.
- Soon as the fens are parched, and earth with heat
- Is gaping, forth he darts into the dry,
- Rolls eyes of fire and rages through the fields,
- Furious from thirst and by the drought dismayed.
- Me list not then beneath the open heaven
- To snatch soft slumber, nor on forest-ridge
- Lie stretched along the grass, when, slipped his slough,
- To glittering youth transformed he winds his spires,
- And eggs or younglings leaving in his lair,
- Towers sunward, lightening with three-forked tongue.
- Of sickness, too, the causes and the signs
- I'll teach thee. Loathly scab assails the sheep,
- When chilly showers have probed them to the quick,
- And winter stark with hoar-frost, or when sweat
- Unpurged cleaves to them after shearing done,
- And rough thorns rend their bodies. Hence it is
- Shepherds their whole flock steep in running streams,
- While, plunged beneath the flood, with drenched fell,
- The ram, launched free, goes drifting down the tide.
- Else, having shorn, they smear their bodies o'er
- With acrid oil-lees, and mix silver-scum
- And native sulphur and Idaean pitch,
- Wax mollified with ointment, and therewith
- Sea-leek, strong hellebores, bitumen black.
- Yet ne'er doth kindlier fortune crown his toil,
- Than if with blade of iron a man dare lance
- The ulcer's mouth ope: for the taint is fed
- And quickened by confinement; while the swain
- His hand of healing from the wound withholds,
- Or sits for happier signs imploring heaven.
- Aye, and when inward to the bleater's bones
- The pain hath sunk and rages, and their limbs
- By thirsty fever are consumed, 'tis good
- To draw the enkindled heat therefrom, and pierce
- Within the hoof-clefts a blood-bounding vein.
- Of tribes Bisaltic such the wonted use,
- And keen Gelonian, when to Rhodope
- He flies, or Getic desert, and quaffs milk
- With horse-blood curdled. Seest one far afield
- Oft to the shade's mild covert win, or pull
- The grass tops listlessly, or hindmost lag,
- Or, browsing, cast her down amid the plain,
- At night retire belated and alone;
- With quick knife check the mischief, ere it creep
- With dire contagion through the unwary herd.
- Less thick and fast the whirlwind scours the main
- With tempest in its wake, than swarm the plagues
- Of cattle; nor seize they single lives alone,
- But sudden clear whole feeding grounds, the flock
- With all its promise, and extirpate the breed.
- Well would he trow it who, so long after, still
- High Alps and Noric hill-forts should behold,
- And Iapydian Timavus' fields,
- Ay, still behold the shepherds' realms a waste,
- And far and wide the lawns untenanted.
- Here from distempered heavens erewhile arose
- A piteous season, with the full fierce heat
- Of autumn glowed, and cattle-kindreds all
- And all wild creatures to destruction gave,
- Tainted the pools, the fodder charged with bane.
- Nor simple was the way of death, but when
- Hot thirst through every vein impelled had drawn
- Their wretched limbs together, anon o'erflowed
- A watery flux, and all their bones piecemeal
- Sapped by corruption to itself absorbed.
- Oft in mid sacrifice to heaven—the white
- Wool-woven fillet half wreathed about his brow—
- Some victim, standing by the altar, there
- Betwixt the loitering carles a-dying fell:
- Or, if betimes the slaughtering priest had struck,
- Nor with its heaped entrails blazed the pile,
- Nor seer to seeker thence could answer yield;
- Nay, scarce the up-stabbing knife with blood was stained,
- Scarce sullied with thin gore the surface-sand.
- Hence die the calves in many a pasture fair,
- Or at full cribs their lives' sweet breath resign;
- Hence on the fawning dog comes madness, hence
- Racks the sick swine a gasping cough that chokes
- With swelling at the jaws: the conquering steed,
- Uncrowned of effort and heedless of the sward,
- Faints, turns him from the springs, and paws the earth
- With ceaseless hoof: low droop his ears, wherefrom
- Bursts fitful sweat, a sweat that waxes cold
- Upon the dying beast; the skin is dry,
- And rigidly repels the handler's touch.
- These earlier signs they give that presage doom.
- But, if the advancing plague 'gin fiercer grow,
- Then are their eyes all fire, deep-drawn their breath,
- At times groan-laboured: with long sobbing heave
- Their lowest flanks; from either nostril streams
- Black blood; a rough tongue clogs the obstructed jaws.
- 'Twas helpful through inverted horn to pour
- Draughts of the wine-god down; sole way it seemed
- To save the dying: soon this too proved their bane,
- And, reinvigorate but with frenzy's fire,
- Even at death's pinch—the gods some happier fate
- Deal to the just, such madness to their foes—
- Each with bared teeth his own limbs mangling tore.
- See! as he smokes beneath the stubborn share,
- The bull drops, vomiting foam-dabbled gore,
- And heaves his latest groans. Sad goes the swain,
- Unhooks the steer that mourns his fellow's fate,
- And in mid labour leaves the plough-gear fast.
- Nor tall wood's shadow, nor soft sward may stir
- That heart's emotion, nor rock-channelled flood,
- More pure than amber speeding to the plain:
- But see! his flanks fail under him, his eyes
- Are dulled with deadly torpor, and his neck
- Sinks to the earth with drooping weight.